first-time home owner, business owner, parent...

Antique Dresser {Upcycle}

I rescued this beauty from a load of furniture sitting in a dilapidated family-owned property up in Maine. It was a little bit rickety; the drawers stuck, it had a bit of moss growing on one of the sides, the fixtures were barely hanging on and the top had been poorly reattached…but it was a survivor. It had to live to see another day. So, I packed it up along with a load of other great finds and hauled it back down to Charleston.

I wasn’t really sure how I wanted to refinish this guy. I briefly considered painting the whole thing, but quickly thought better of that and moved on to a two-tone idea. For awhile I planned to use both paint and stain, but I still wasn’t convinced that paint was the way to go. You can see a few of my Pinteret-inspired ideas above. So, I decided that I needed to think on it…In the meantime, however, I at least needed to get him cleaned up and functioning so that my boyfriend had a place to store his clothes. I used my normal white vinegar + water + hot sun method to get the musty smell out of his bones and then sanded off the dried green stuff {thinking it was some type of moss?} before moving it into the bedroom where it sat for the next 3 months.

Fast forward to now. The sun is shining, it’s teasing of spring and my tools have called me back to the yard. Besides that, that, my boyfriend has lost one too many battles with the drawers {he’s 6′ 7″ and 210 lbs and even he can’t muscle them out without a struggle} I decided it was time to get that hefty little dresser in shape. I started by removing the top of the dresser. I’m not sure if it was designed this way or had been badly reattached at some point in it’s life, but the top did not sit centrally over the base. Removing it, however, was quite a battle in itself, as it was attached by 4-inch nails. But, a few deep breaths and all the patience I could muster finally got the two pieces apart unscathed.

Then I set to work on stripping the top and drawers. Let me just tell you that I am not a fan of stripping, especially varnish. It’s messy, has an irregular success rate and often makes me want to pull my hair out. I avoid it whenever possible, but this dresser had a century’s worth of varnish and grime and I didn’t want to sand the life out of it. The stripper actually did a decent job of lifting the varnish. There was a bit of wire brush scrubbing required, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d imagined.

Once I had the drawers all cleaned up, I put the whole thing back together and back in the bedroom it went. We had a few weeks worth of visitors and traveling, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish it right away. This down time, however, was the best design decision because I realized how much I loved the two-tone stained look. The entire piece would still need a lot of work, but the light drawers and top against the dark base was giving me a serious #woodie 🙂

So, once I had another weekend to work I tackled the base. And this time, I used my handy mouse sander with 80-grit sandpaper. I wanted to maintain the dark look, but I also wanted to rough it up a bit. The more irregular my removal became, the more in love I fell. Once I had the base cleaned up and sanded to my liking, I pulled out my ‘Dark Walnut’ stain {I fell in love with this color during my DIY Kitchen Island Project} and coated the base. I let the stain sit for about 10-15 min, so that the areas I’d sanded down to raw wood would pick up more of the dark color. The areas that hadn’t been sanded as much didn’t really absorb much of the color, which is exactly what I wanted. After the initial coat, I played around with darkening a few other spots in a more spontaneous fashion.

The original drawer pulls weren’t salvageable, so I picked up a few cheap wood knobs at Lowes – they were $0.97 a pop – and stained them with a ‘Cherry’ wood stain.

I filled the existing holes on the drawers with wood putty and cleaned them up a bit more using 220-grit sandpaper.

Then I stained them with my ‘Cherry’ wood stain as well. I only left the stain on for about 5-min in order to maintain my super light contrast. It added a bit of gloss and shine without changing the dynamic of the original color too much.

Hey there!

Follow

Sponsors & Affiliates

Never Miss a Post!

Instagram!

Instagram!

4 days agoby jillianize#Repost@womensmarch ( @get_repost ) ・・・ Today's #SignOfResistance is a reminder of who we are. Artwork by @tlynnfaz . Photo via @jillyaintfromphilly . • [IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A black and white photo of street art on a wall reads "America is black." Below the word "black" is a bold black line. Below that are 9 rows of text reading "it is native, it wears a hijab, it is a Spanish speaking tongue, it is migrant, it is queer, it is a woman, it is here, has been here." Below that is a bold black line. Below the line in bold black lettering reads "and it's…

3 days agoby jillianizeThis little girl has so much love to give. She is compassionate, kind, and incredibly patient (which is a blessing with such a headstrong twin sister). Officially, she is the oldest of our brood. She's a great "big" sister and I'm confident that she'll be an equally as amazing bigger sister as well! #bigsister#oldesttwin#ilikesmallwaves#beachbumpin

3 weeks agoby jillianizeI should be finishing our P&L, booking our summer festival travel, running payroll, or (let's be honest) taking a nap, but sometimes banging down a wall (that's been plaguing your site lines since you moved in) is just the thing you need to get your work mojo back. Now onto those quarterly taxes... #smallbusinessowner